You continue walking up the hill from the wharf and see the inevitable richening of Newport. Newport--like Rhode Island itself--was founded as a religious haven first, and a port of commerce second. Commerce made riches for better homes to be built up the hill.
As a place that granted religious freedom to all, Newport--to no ones's surprise--has the first Jewish temple in American, Touro Synagogue.
Up in Providence. Roger Williams escaped the Massachusetts Puritans and founded Providence on the same freedom of religion basis. That freedom extended to commerce, a sort of "anything goes" situation which exists to this day. I remember my grandmother, the formidable Sarah Jane Gallagher, telling me once: "Don't step on toes, and anything goes".